h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I logged onto h2g2 for the first time about 24 hours ago and chose Alighieri as a key-name (just to sound swish). Now - less than a day in - my name sake has a NEW and brilliant entry - and I am saved the laborious task of chronicalling Dante.

Smoke me a kipper, Zarqoun, I'll be back for more Dante!

Wow! A comment before I even finished! Thanks for the compliment. The article is finished now. I hope you enjoy it! By the way, welcome to h2g2. I'm sure you will like it here. Nice to see you are a Red Dwarf fan, I'm a big fan of the Dwarf myself.

This forum could really digress and we could start discussing Red Dwarf and how the humour seems to have gone a little awry in the last series, but I won't start that one

Great article. I really enjoyed it.

Pastey, I'm from Floor 42. I don't know the meaning of "on topic". By the way, I hope you like my later top 10 lists as much as the first one. If you haven't been following them, don't worry, I have an archive. I actually haven't done this week's yet becuase I usuallydo them Friday nights, and I was too busy finishing up this article to even remember. I'm about to write it now.

Anyways, getting back on track, I'm embarassed to admit that I never even finished reading the Comedy. I read the first few cantos of Inferno last year, got side tracked and never finished it, but it's next on my list. I'm more interested in Dante from a historical perspective, so I thought I could write it before I read the story. Writing history is really mostly researching and rewording, you don't need to know the knowledge firsthand, but it helps to know a little.

Do you agree with my decision to use the Italian names for things? I know most English speakers Anglicize names like Guelphs and Ghibbelines, but being that the Italian language was of such importance to the "star" of the article, I thought I should use the names that they were actually called. Also, does anyone know of better translations for the titles I had to make judgement calls on?

If you can think of anything that could be improved, please let me know. Compliments are more pleasant to read, but constructive criticism is more useful.

I like the Italian names, although (and this is off the top of my head and you may have already done it) including the anglicised(sp) ones aswell would make a more complete article.
One thing that you article could really do with is a pop up footnote thing. Which I believe is somewhere on the 'to do' list at the Towers. It's something common with all longer articles that after scrolling down to read the footnote, it's hard to find your place again. Unlike in a book where you can put your finger there
Also, again without looking at the article to see if you've done it covering other works he may have done would also lead to a more complete entry. But then you get into the realm of too much in one entry. Perhaps an entry on Dante and then one for each of his works, each linked to the Dante one, and vis versa.

And yes, I've been reading the Top Tens, most of us working on the Post have We're intending to start a 'Homepage of the Week' thing as soon as we can get someone to write it, and when we do we'll definately be including yours Just gotta find a mug to write for us every week

Thanks for the input! By including the anglicized versions, do you mean something like "...warring political factions, the Guelfi (Guelphs) and the Ghibillini (Ghibillines)..."? No offense, but that seems rather pointless to me. Anyone who knows the names "Guelph" and "Ghibilline" (and I admit I may be spelling them wrong right here) would know what I was talking about, and anyone who didn't wouldn't need to know. This is just my opinion; I don't think there's one right or wrong here, but I'm keeping that the way it is.

As for the bibliography, I did include most of his other works that are definitely written by him, and yes, it is rather long. Maybe sometime when you're not busy, you can read the whole article. That's the problem with long articles; people tend to skim them. I knew it was long, but there was so much that needed to be said. I was going to attempt to use that divider thingee, but when I went to look at the code, it says they won't accept it in approved entries, and I want to submit this.

I am impressed that people are reading my top ten list. No one ever comments on my home page or my journals, so I don't know if anyone's reading them. I am experimenting with different adjustments in format to see what is most attractive. This is the first one with the Top 10 List title as a header and the theme as a subheader. I think I will include a permanent introduction. I hope people read the intro to the day's list, because it is often a joke in itself. This is especially true of my last one, with the fake Bible passage. Say, which one is your favorite so far? I think the weather one's the best, probably because I got the basic idea from a joke I heard years ago, whereas most of the others were freestyle. I think I'm better at parody and adaptation than completely original ideas. Even the stories I write have some inspiration from real life events or other fiction. Then again, so did Dante's, so it can't be all bad.

This is going to be a really long post isn't it?

*checks*

Yes, yes it is.

*stubbornly defies accepted logic and submits it in full length anyway*